One week after NYPD officers drove through a crowd of protesters on Flatbush Avenue in Park Slope, a civilian driver was caught on camera plowing through a group of protesters on a Crown Heights sidewalk.
The incident happened around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday at the intersection of Brooklyn Avenue and St. John's Place. Witness Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, who filmed the video above, says the man behind the wheel "kept insisting he had to go to work even though there was a march in front of him. Protestors tried to convince him to turn around and instead he backed up and drove into a crowd."
Two blocks away, demonstrators marching against police brutality managed to stop the driver at Eastern Parkway and alert the police. A video shared on Twitter by witness Chris Welch shows police waiting for the man to put on his face mask before being taken into custody.
Detective Denise Moroney, an NYPD spokesperson, identified the driver as Jacob Leiper, a 44-year-old Queens resident. Police say Leiper was driving toward the intersection when he saw protesters kneeling in the street and blocking his way. He allegedly drove onto the sidewalk, where "he encountered more protestors, some of which struck his car and climbed on it as well," according to the NYPD statement.
One cyclist who was trying to stop Leiper from driving over people the sidewalk sustained an ankle injury after being struck by Leiper's SUV. Three other people sustained minor injuries, the NYPD said.
Leiper was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, leaving the scene of an accident, and marijuana possession.
While the incident does not appear to be overtly political in nature, it is the latest in a growing number of attacks on peaceful protesters by drivers weaponizing their vehicles. University of Chicago researcher Ari Weill tells Vox there's an increasingly violent far-right culture that celebrates such attacks online and is making them more likely.
After first defending the police who drove into the protesters last Saturday, Mayor Bill de Blasio belatedly called for an investigation into the officers.
